Ugandan Attorney General Appeals Anti-Homosexuality Act Court Ruling

The Attorney General of Uganda has filed a Notice of Appeal in an attempt to reverse the Constitutional Court of Uganda’s judgment which voided the Anti Homosexuality Act.

Advocates, who won the case, and were awarded 50% of the costs and are now preparing to fight the appeal all the way to the Supreme Court in Uganda.

In any event parliamentarians have launched a petition, vowing to bring the Act back to the legislature, knowing they have the populace on their side. The case was won on a flawed procedure rather than on the human rights merits of whether the content of the law is in and of itself constitutional.

In the meantime many Ugandan LGBTI people, impacted by the law still remain in hiding, for fear of reprisal and unable to work due to firings which followed the passage of the law and outings in public and news media. Some are facing imminent eviction. People are reporting that the Ugandan LGBT organization whom they have approached for direct humanitarian funding have told them they are unable to provide humanitarian funds.

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See our earlier articles –

Official Ugandan Constitutional Court Ruling Killing the Anti-Homosexuality Act for Now READ MORE

By Melanie Nathan, August 05, 2014.

One can expect that if a Parliament fails to follow basic protocol and procedure and passionate local and International law experts get together using activists as Plaintiff’s, it is unlikely that the law will withstand the test of Constitutionality. That is what happened in the case of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act last week.

Not to mention what may well have been an orchestrated political ploy to hear the case early, in a quest by perhaps keen Justices to push the hearing forward, to coincide with President Museveni’s trip to the U.S.A.

Here is the official ruling – and while activists celebrated the ruling as an expected victory, Parliamentarians vowed in overwhelming numbers to reintroduce the law that provides harsh penalties for gays and lesbians, beyond the existing penal code that is still on the books criminalizing homosexuality.

Reality Check as Ugandan Court Rules Against the Anti-Homosexuality Act

Today, in a packed Constitutional Court in Kampala, Uganda, a panel of five Justices ruled unanimously that The Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014 (AHA,) is unconstitutional. However, the ruling is based on the manner in which the legislation was passed, rather than on the merits of the AHA itself, and hence jubilation must be tempered with caution.